All posts tagged euro-zone economy

For quite some time now, those who’d like you to buy European stocks have been pointing to the relative resilience of economic numbers on this side of the Pond.

The U.S. recovery may have slowed to a snail’s pace by all sorts of measures, with employment, housing and corporate-spending plans inching along, if they’re moving at all. But Europe seemed comparatively perky and immune.

The usual old reasons were trotted out: the euro zone’s broad internal market, Germany’s wonderful export exposure to areas other than the U.S. You name it.

But, as with all such ‘decoupling’ theories, you only have to wait a while before they meet a grimmer reality. And unravel.

Recall that, before credit crunched, there were those who said this multipolar world of ours meant emerging economies would barely miss a beat if Western capitalism collapsed. Turns out their markets fell further and harder than New York, London and Frankfurt, even if they recovered faster too.

But now some important data have cast severe doubt on Europe’s future resilience. September’s purchasing managers’ indexes from across the euro zone have disappointed market expectations, in some cases severely, both on a country-by-country basis and for the zone as a whole. Read our coverage here.